A Couple Speaks Up on Behalf of Thousands of Delayed Travelers

A class action has been filed against CrowdStrike following a systemwide software outage in late July. This left thousands of travelers with canceled flights, leaving millions of dollars in losses behind.

CrowdStrike Holdings is a Texas-based cybersecurity technology company. After the outage, they published a root cause analysis stating that there had been a mismatch in the inputs passed through the content validator and those supplied to the content interpreter.

This was, to put it lightly, extremely disruptive to nationwide travel. Delta, along with several other airlines, relied on CrowdStrike’s Windows-based computers and terminals. In total, Delta Airlines canceled over 5,000 flights between July 19 and July 25 due to the software fault.

“We believe that CrowdStrike knew of the dangers of pushing out an ill-designed and poorly tested software update on a Friday,” says co-counsel Charles LaDuca.

Christopher and Sara Harlan were two of the thousands of passengers who got hit with a cancellation. The couple was on vacation in the Dominican Republic at the time, and were forced to pay for food and hotels while they waited to make alternate travel plans. These transactions were not reimbursed by the carrier. The Harlans filed the lawsuit against CrowdStrike in federal court in Austin, Texas.

“We’re fortunate that through the class action system,” explains Warren Burns, an attorney for the class, “individuals can collectively litigate and recover losses when individual lawsuits might not be practical. While other litigation is underway or pending, this filing targets CrowdStrike and the impact of this massive and avoidable IT outage on Delta's customers.”

While facing a lawsuit of their own for their failure to refund canceled passengers, Delta has expressed a desire to bring another suit against CrowdStrike. The two have been playing the blame game since the outage occurred, and the airline wants revenge for the $550 million they lost.

Harlan v. CrowdStrike Holdings Inc. and CrowdStrike Inc. will move forward in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas, Austin Division.

FMI: www.crowdstrike.com, www.delta.com